What Is God’s Will For My Life?

I used to be a Protestant pastor.  But I got burned out, which is what I’ve done with every job I’ve had.  The problem is that I really believed it was God’s will that I was to be a pastor I just believed I had to sustain it not Him.

I will never take credit for what God did through me.  The unseen part of being a pastor was hard for me.  I could get on a stage and let God use me for 20-30 minutes.  Spending time with people who wanted to grow spiritually was amazing.  Setting up home groups was great.  But give me a guy who doesn’t want to grow or doesn’t see the big picture and I’d spend 3 days trying to get over a 30-minute conversation.  To top it all off my family converted to The Orthodox Church and being a priest is so much different than being a pastor it just didn’t interest me. Or Did it?

A Chance Meeting?

A couple of months ago a priest from another area came to our men’s bible study and told us about St Herman’s Seminary in Kodiak Alaska.  At the same time, my wife was on a missions trip with two priests who were telling her about the seminary.  We were hooked!  This has to be God’s will…right?

We started looking at jobs for her.  Talking to our youngest son about moving.   Trying to decide whether to sell our home or rent it out. Then it hit me,  is this God’s will or am I just trying to get another job.  My wife was having some trouble at work too so maybe she wanted a geographical cure.  Besides that, I only kind of wanted to be a pastor before.  If I’m not sold out for this it is a futile endeavor.

So I Began To Dig

What is God’s will for my life?  Who am I?  What am I good at? So, I started with Socrates…he seemed like a good Christian guide. <That’s a joke

An unexamined life is not worth living.

Plato’s Apology

Or,

Know thyself!

Oracle of Delphi

To be quite honest, I have never sat down and thought about what I wanted to do.  I got fired at 19 so I joined the Navy.  Then, I liked the guys at the job fair so I became a copier tech. Finally,  I answered an altar-call so I became a pastor.  Because everyone told me I had to since I went down front for that altar-call.  I couldn’t let everyone down.

So I took an aptitude test.  It said I would be good at teaching, counseling, and clergy.  Two out of three ain’t bad.  Essentially that is what I did from 1999 until 2014 when I quit.  I taught small groups, I taught from the stage, I taught one-on-one; and I thought that solidified my calling.

The bible also has verses about knowing yourself.

Let us search out and examine our ways,
And turn back to the Lord;

Lamentations 3:40

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

1 Corinthians 11:28

How Do I Examine Myself?

I started by praying.  God, what is your will for my life?  Is there a direction you want me to take?  Please put people in my life to guide me.

The first thing that happened was a friend recommended a book called, Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow by Marsha Sinetar. (Amazon Link) It’s not a Christian book, but it helped me start to see where I fit in.  I also started journaling and spending time listening to God.  I have always done what I was told, now I want to do what I love. 

I talked to my priest.  He gave me some other options and told me that this isn’t an overnight process.  I need to take six months to a year and really spend time listening to God and finding out what I am good at, and love to do.  Right now I’m at about month three and I’m writing it out because it’s helping me figure out what I love.  The last time I spent two years happy with my Job was writing and coaching.  I wasn’t making a lot of money, but I loved what I did.

God’s Will?

The bible tells us a lot about God’s will for us. First of all because Christ died for us we should,

Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. ¹⁵ See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.
¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray without ceasing, ¹⁸ in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:14-18

I’m pretty sure what Paul is saying about God’s will is that we need to be good human beings and do the next right thing, but we can’t do that without God’s love.

There are twelve verses (Listed at the end of the post) I found about doing God’s will and none were about having more of anything but God.  Matthew 6:33 is the one I started with, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things (talking about food and clothing) will be added to you.  If the first thing I need to do is Seek God’s kingdom, then I have to start with the sacraments of the church, prayer, liturgy, and reading the bible.

Needless to say, that chance meeting with the priest really sent me into a place I hadn’t been before.  This is just my journey, and it is just starting out.  I’ll post more as time goes on.  Right now I’m just being a father to my boys and a husband to my wife and doing the next right thing. That is God’s good and perfect will.

Bible Verses About God’s Will

• 1 Timothy 2:34
• 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
• Luke 9:23
• James 1:5
• 1 Peter 2:15
• 2 Peter 3:9
• Ephesians 5:15-20
• Micah 6:8
• Romans 12:1-2
• John 6:38-40
• Matthew 6:33